It's easy to lazily point out flaws with this law. But as someone who is familiar with the foster care system, this is a disaster in the making.

Abusive parents are going to find ways to be abusive. It's hard wired somewhere in their brain. And that sucks and should be addressed. But forcing kids into foster care is WAY worse than a parent ignoring you.

My thought is that they will, except for the most extreme cases, use this to tack on to sentencing as an adder when another more serious crime was inflicted. i.e. when the kid is physically abused, now they can add jail time by charging under this law as well.

plcow:My thought is that they will, except for the most extreme cases, use this to tack on to sentencing as an adder when another more serious crime was inflicted. i.e. when the kid is physically abused, now they can add jail time by charging under this law as well.

Yeah, i'm figuring its one of those catch-as-catch-can laws that ends up just being used as a sentencing modification, or a fall back, lesser included charge. Which makes some sense in the US, but from what i heard in the UK they dont really do plea bargaining, so it will have less practical effect.

So, does sending your spawn off to some boarding school in the wilds of Cumbria the day they turn 4 count? Because, if so, an entire swath of the upper class are going to be queuing up to spend a decade in Newgate...

Once Great Britain, the land where they had to make an exception for their laws so that banned Olympic sports could be held in London, where anti-stab knives are all the rage, and where now you can't give your kid the silent treatment for being naughty.

Teiritzamna:plcow: My thought is that they will, except for the most extreme cases, use this to tack on to sentencing as an adder when another more serious crime was inflicted. i.e. when the kid is physically abused, now they can add jail time by charging under this law as well.

Yeah, i'm figuring its one of those catch-as-catch-can laws that ends up just being used as a sentencing modification, or a fall back, lesser included charge. Which makes some sense in the US, but from what i heard in the UK they dont really do plea bargaining, so it will have less practical effect.

I think it's so they have something to charge shiatty parents with when they don't have physical things like beatings or sexual assault. Abuse doesn't have to be physical for it to have a real and very negative effect.

/csbMy father is a very emotionally abusive person, but I never really felt like I could seek outside help about it. What was I supposed to say, "My dad is mean to me"? I just thought that's how parents were--they shouted at you over nothing and denigrated you all the time. Took me a long time to get over it, and in some ways, I'm still working through all the little traps left in my brain.

I don't really know what the laws in the US look like for this kind of thing. I grew up in GA, so suffice it to say there wasn't much in the way of good social services. One of his angry ex-girlfriends called CPS as a form of revenge once, and they came out to the house, and since he's also a crazy hoarder I thought that he was going to get in trouble for sure, but nothing ever happened./csb

dittybopper:Teiritzamna: I know their hearts are in the right place, but man this sounds like it would be a nightmare to actually police and enforce.

Oh, it will be easy to police and enforce. It's just that it will be done selectively, against poor people.

It'll be used like this:

"Well, we can't prove you beat your kid but we have your statement that you did x, y, and z as punishment for alleged bad conduct but that sounds emotionally negligent so good luck proving that you do care."

Other new offences could include forcing a child to witness domestic violence, making a child a scape goat or forcing degrading punishments upon them.

That is one if my favorite parts of being a parent though! I told my 12 year old daughter that the next time she fails to turn in an assignment I would email her teacher asking that she be excused because she just started getting her period.

ckccfa:My father is a very emotionally abusive person, but I never really felt like I could seek outside help about it. What was I supposed to say, "My dad is mean to me"? I just thought that's how parents were--they shouted at you over nothing and denigrated you all the time. Took me a long time to get over it, and in some ways, I'm still working through all the little traps left in my brain.

Similar story here. I'm almost certain I had juvenile depression around age 7. You know how my mother dealt with it? Guilt-tripping me about being depressed while living a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle, screaming at me when that inevitably didn't work, and locking me in my room.

And to give you some idea of how farked up my mother is, the reason I know all of this is because I heard it from her own mouth not more than 4 months ago. And she said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. In all these years it has never once occurred to her that that was kind of farked up. Still creeps me the hell out just thinking about it.

jst3p:That is one if my favorite parts of being a parent though! I told my 12 year old daughter that the next time she fails to turn in an assignment I would email her teacher asking that she be excused because she just started getting her period.

She hasn't missed one since.

This is sick and hilarious and I'm filing that away in case I ever need it (daughter's 7 now.) Thanks for the tip!

jst3p:Other new offences could include forcing a child to witness domestic violence, making a child a scape goat or forcing degrading punishments upon them.

That is one if my favorite parts of being a parent though! I told my 12 year old daughter that the next time she fails to turn in an assignment I would email her teacher asking that she be excused because she just started getting her period.

macadamnut:jst3p: Other new offences could include forcing a child to witness domestic violence, making a child a scape goat or forcing degrading punishments upon them.

That is one if my favorite parts of being a parent though! I told my 12 year old daughter that the next time she fails to turn in an assignment I would email her teacher asking that she be excused because she just started getting her period.

I certainly agree that neglecting a child emotionally can be just as damaging as physically harming the child, but it definitely could lead to abuse. Divorced parents using the child to accuse the other one of emotional neglect is the first thing that popped into my mind, but I'm sure there are other cases out there.

I know that in the US emotional abuse actually is fairly well-defined, it's not just "anything that makes the little snowflake sad". Neglect, long-running degradation, etc. People can cherry-pick it and dramatically misinterpret it to sound like social workers just randomly take children, but in reality there are some pretty strict rules about establishing patterns and how much of what it takes to cross the line.